The growing hysteria over Iran's alleged capability to build a nuclear bomb some time in the future is getting very dangerous. Far too many people in the Middle East, and in the world at large, have too much to gain from confrontation, and not enough people are working to cool the atmosphere.
This week, a partial leak from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report was published in the Washington Post, giving rise to all sorts of headlines about how Iran has acquired the skills to make a nuclear bomb. The problem with such a report is that the leak is not the whole report, and it is impossible to make a sensible judgement without all the information. For example, even if the skills are in Iran, we need to know if they are being used, and if anything is actually being done to make a bomb. The full report has to be published, and these questions need to be answered before any reaction is possible.
But this has not stopped the fanatics in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, who have already announced that they have plans to bomb Iran's nuclear installations. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is delighted with the domestic notoriety that these anti-Iranian reactions create as they give his party an advantage in the forthcoming presidential elections. It is a disastrous coincidence that next year's US presidential elections will happen at the same time, so Obama has to act very tough on Iran in order to face down his Republican opponents.
It is a tragedy that no one has any interest in stopping the drift towards confrontation with its potential for armed conflict. Any strike on Iran would be very dangerous for the region as Iran would most certainly strike back at anyone Ahmadinejad thinks might be involved. It is important that everyone remembers that violence will not bring any success, except to those who will profit from confusion and chaos.
